U.P. makes the Top Asian Universities 2017 list

London’s Times Higher Education (THE) magazine came out with their list of Asia’s top universities, and only one school from the Philippines made the list: the University of the Philippines (UP).

UP found itself in the 201-250 cluster of THE’s Asia University Rankings, which includes 298 universities in Asia. The National University of Singapore topped the list anew, solidifying its spot as Asia’s best university. China’s Peking University and Tsinghua University rounded out the top three.

Thailand and Malaysia had the most universities of any Southeast Asian country on the list, with 10 Thai universities and nine Malay universities being included in Asia’s top universities. These two countries, along with Indonesia and Pakistan, had “the potential to follow in the footsteps of Asian higher education powerhouses such as China and South Korea” according to THE.

Malaysia, on the other hand, is seen by THE as the one with the greatest potential among emerging Asian nations, with seven of the top 200 places claimed by Malaysian universities, including 59th-ranked University of Malaya.

Mohd Amin Jalaludin, vice-chancellor of the University of Malaya, said the country was on its way to “becoming a leading higher education nation.” He, however, said that “there should be distinctions” between what smaller countries can achieve compared to Asia’s giants, like China.

THE’s Asia University Rankings is a subset of their global rankings, which had placed UP in the 801+ bracket. The list has expanded to almost 300 universities, up from 100 universities in 2013.